When All You Know is How to Run
by vendettadays
Summary: All Lara had wanted was to feel something other than the fear and dread that threatened to consume her. But she hadn't expected to feel this. (Post Tomb Raider 2013) Lara/Sam.


**Title:** When All You Know is How to Run  
**Author: **vendettadays  
**Fandom:** Tomb Raider (2013)  
**Characters:** Lara Croft, Sam Nishimura  
**Rating:** M  
**Length:** 1737  
**Summary:** All Lara had wanted was to feel something other than the fear and dread that threatened to consume her. But she hadn't expected to feel this.

**A/N:** Trigger warning: depiction of gore.

* * *

It was over.

Yamatai was over.

It was a phrase that Lara had to remind herself each morning when she woke up, alive, and in a hospital bed in Japan. The doctors explained, when she came to, that she had collapsed on the cargo ship after they had been rescued. She had to be flown in by helicopter for treatment. They also said that she almost lost her life. The kind doctors meant from serious infection, but Lara knew of ways much worse than dying from germs. They were the kind of deaths that plagued her nights and lingered during the day. She stayed in hospital as long as she could before she decided to discharge herself.

'You can't just _discharge_ yourself!'

'I feel much better, Sam,' replied Lara, as she packed up her few belongings into a bag that Sam had brought for her.

'Yeah, like hell you are! Don't think that I can't see you favouring your right side more than your left!'

'It's been more than a month. I just…'

Lara bit her lip and closed her eyes, as she struggled with what she wanted to say. She focused on the battered journal in her hands and how the brown leather felt beneath her fingers, so that her mind didn't drift to thoughts that she had been trying to keep at bay. Sam enveloped her hands and she released the breath she had been holding. Sam's thumb traversed the scars that rose and dipped on the back of her hands, the tough calluses that were islands on her palm, and the lines that criss-crossed her fingers. The soothing touch calmed her in a way that only drugs could.

'Sweetie, open your eyes.'

Lara did as she was told. Sam smiled at her and coaxed the journal out of her tight grip. Lara sighed and squeezed Sam's hand, which were marked with splatters of light blue that refused to come off no matter how hard she scrubbed.

'I… I can't stay here any longer. I need to go.'

'Lara, you can't just run—'

'I know,' interrupted Lara. 'I know.'

There were ghosts in the shadows. They followed her everywhere and crept up on her like dread, inching its way up her spine and settling at the back of her neck. She was no hero. She was a coward and she did not deserve to get off that island. Her legs ached to run, because she couldn't stand how death pervaded here with every turn of her head.

'Fine, but before you go gallivanting off to wherever you're going, just stay for one night at my place.'

Sam looked mutinous with a frown on her brow and a set jaw. It was a look that Lara had not seen before Yamatai. She didn't want to see that expression on Sam's face. No one had survived unchanged, so she agreed without reluctance and Sam's happy excitement drowned the flashbacks for a moment. Even the sun seemed to shine brighter too, making the shadows recede back into her mind.

They left the hospital, despite the severe protests from several doctors, but Sam assured them that Lara was good to go in rapid-fire Japanese that did nothing to calm the doctors. In the cab Lara held onto Sam's hand all the way from the hospital to the apartment. One distraction. All it took was one distraction and Sam had disappeared back then. She didn't want that to happen again. No matter how unlikely it was that Sam was going to vanish from the back of a cab in a heavily populated city like Tokyo. But she held on tightly anyway.

The ride was short and Lara tried to memorise the left turns and right turns as they drove through the streets. Her mind stuck on surviving even when there was no danger around. They arrived outside Sam's apartment complex; a modern high-rise building that dominated Lara and made her wary of being inside. Trapped. Inescapable. No quick exits.

The apartment was large and airy with simple décor that fitted Mr Nishimura's tastes, since he owned it. Lara swallowed the flicker of panic that rose from her stomach. The soft carpet was alien beneath her bare feet and she willed herself to walk towards the cream-coloured sofa. She sat down and put her face into hands. Her left leg bounced up and down, up and down in a nervous rhythm that travelled throughout her body.

The sofa shifted as Sam settled next to Lara, who turned and hugged Sam as tight as she could without hurting her. She bit her lip and closed her eyes to the apartment that looked like another hospital. It had the same dark corners, the same shadows. She focused on the curves of Sam's body, the way Sam's arms felt across her back, and the easy way Sam breathed in and out like she had all the time to live in the world.

* * *

There was blood.

The bodies, bound in cloth and rope and strung upside down from the rafters, dripped with it.

The men, that she slaughtered so that they couldn't slaughter her, eyed her lifelessly from a lake of red.

The deer with its black, beady eyes of silent surprise lied half-stripped of its flesh, so that she didn't die of hunger before she died from a bullet to the head.

Lara stared at the hunting knife in her hands. She was sat across someone, pinning them down with her weight and the sharp blade imbedded deep into their stomach. She pulled the knife out smoothly and easily, sliding out from organs, flesh, skin and clothing without resistance. Her hands were stained and smeared with warm blood. It dripped down in lines from the hilt, to her hands, to her wrist and forearm, where it gathered at a point on her elbows. Lara stared at the wound she inflicted, blood bubbling from it with each laboured gasp of the body below her. Her eyes followed up the black t-shirt that gleamed dark from the blood, over a delicate neck and round chin, until she reached the face of the person beneath her.

'Lara…'

Sam's chest moved with each ragged breath she took. Blood spilled from the corners of her mouth like the tears that slid from her eyes. Panic gripped Lara like claws on her shoulders. It scratched at the back of her head and shook her hands, until she was no longer in control of her actions. She raised the knife high above her head and forced it down into Sam's chest, slicing between the gaps in her ribs and plunging into her heart.

'Lara…'

'Lara!'

Lara's eyes flew open. Her body shot up into a sitting position. Her head darted from side to side, but stopped at the sight of Sam with trembling lips and eyes filled with fear. The bedside lamp was on and the shadows hovered over Sam's shoulder, as she sat on the side of the bed with her hands on Lara's shoulder.

'It was a nightmare, everything is –'

Lara placed her hand on the back of Sam's neck and pulled her into a kiss. Her lips moved hard and hurried against Sam's soft lips, breaking away only to allow Sam to lift her arms up so that she could help her take off her t-shirt. Her hands reached up into short hair, fingers threading and grasping, because if she didn't, Sam would disappear into the shadows that lingered behind her.

They stopped abruptly and Lara loosened her hold on Sam's hair. Her forehead rested against Sam's as she drew a breath that rattled her lungs.

'Hey,' said Sam.

Lara looked up. The fear had disappeared, replaced by lust and want with swollen lips that no longer trembled. It was Sam's turn to pull Lara into a crushing kiss. It was hard and fast and unforgiving. It was everything Lara needed and more.

Sam rose onto her knees without breaking contact and pushed Lara onto her back. Her hands slipped underneath Lara's tank top, pushing it up so that it gathered just below her breasts. Sam laid kiss after kiss on Lara's waist, nipping and sucking and biting a trail of purple marks up to Lara's chest. She avoided the round, pink scar above Lara's hip.

Lara watched, breathless, as Sam pushed up the rest of her top to reveal her breasts before covering one with her mouth. She gasped, head tilted back and back arched, as she felt Sam's tongue circle and snake in a tantalising dance. Sam continued her way up the slope of Lara's breast with her thigh pressed between Lara's legs, until she could see Lara's hooded eyes and feel her shuddering breaths on her cheek.

Sam trailed her hand down Lara's side, fingertips barely grazing skin as she reached the waistband of Lara's shorts. She nodded when she saw Sam's questioning gaze. She needed Sam so much right now, to show her that she was alive and well and safe. She needed to feel something other than the prickling sense of danger that threatened to consume her.

* * *

Lara finished tying the laces on her boots and straightened up. She checked her bag one last time before shouldering it. It was 5AM and Sam was still asleep. Lara tried to swallow the rising shame that filled her entire body from head to toe. She was a coward. She used Sam like she was something that could be thrown away afterwards.

'Lara?'

Sam's morning-rough voice froze Lara on her spot by the front door. She forced herself to look over her shoulder at Sam, wrapped in the thin blanket that they had shared a few hours before. There was sadness and hurt, but most heartbreaking of all was the quiet acceptance that Lara saw. She was the cause of this. It was all her fault again.

She had wanted to feel something different last night. But she had not been prepared to feel _this_. This that made her want to run to Sam's side and run away all at the same time. This that made her back tingle with trepidation and set her response to flight. Last night was a moment of weakness that opened a new door to things that she was not ready to face.

Lara dropped her gaze to the floor and opened the apartment door.

'I'm sorry.'


End file.
